Christopher Otto, Austin Wulliman, violin; John Pickford Richards, viola; Jay Campbell, cello

Hailed by The New York Times as “our leading new-music foursome”, the JACK Quartet is one of the most acclaimed, renowned, and respected groups performing today. JACK has maintained an unwavering commitment to their mission of performing and commissioning new works, giving voice to underheard composers, and cultivating an ever-greater sense of openness toward contemporary classical music. The quartet was selected as Musical America’s 2018 “Ensemble of the Year”, nominated for GRAMMY Awards for recordings in 2018 & 2022, named to WQXR’s “19 for 19 Artists to Watch”, and awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Through intimate relationships with today’s most creative voices, JACK embraces close collaboration with the composers they perform, leading to a radical embodiment of the technical, musical, and emotional aspects of their work. The quartet has worked with artists such as Julia Wolfe, George Lewis, Chaya Czernowin, Helmut Lachenmann, Caroline Shaw, and Simon Steen-Andersen. JACK’s all-access initiative, JACK Studio, commissions a selection of artists each year, who will receive money, workshop time, mentorship, and resources to develop new work to be performed and recorded by the quartet. JACK operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and appreciation of new string quartet music. jackquartet.com

Theo’s operatic highlights include Papageno in Die Zauberflöte at Los Angeles Opera and Israeli Opera, Count in Le nozze di Figaro at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Israeli Opera, Schaunard in La Bohème at Seattle Opera and Atlanta Opera, Escamillo in Carmen at Atlanta Opera, the world premiere of Denis & Katya at Opera Philadelphia, Flight at Des Moines Metro Opera, Candide at LA Opera, Carmen at LA Opera, and Lakmé with Washington Concert Opera. A frequent performer of Philip Glass, he performed in Satyagraha at LA Opera, Les Enfants Terribles at Opera Omaha, and the US premiere of The Trial at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Theo has concertized with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Vocal Arts DC, Castleton Festival, Salzburg Mozartwoche, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Israel Philharmonic, Marlboro Music, Bard Music Festival, Portland Symphony, and New York Festival of Song. He was a 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Grand Finalist and a recipient of a 2018 Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation. Future seasons see him at Hamburgische Staatsoper as Prosdocimo in Il Turco in Italia, and at Opernhaus Zürich.

Born in Celle, Germany, Jon has performed across four continents and has held faculty positions at major universities such as the University of Utah, Utah Valley University, and Westminster College. Regarded as an inspiring and energizing educator, Jon Paul prides himself on working with students with diverse backgrounds, experiences, cultures, and abilities.

His teachers and mentors include Eliot Fisk, Oscar Ghiglia, John Gibbons, Tom Johnson, Adam Holzman, and Bruce Holzman. Jon holds degrees in Classical Guitar Performance from The University of Texas at Austin (B.M.), New England Conservatory (M.M.), and Florida State University (D.M.A).

An acclaimed recitalist and chamber musician, Jon has performed with the Utah Opera, The Woodlands Symphony, Park City Chamber Music Festival, violinist Donna Fairbanks. He tours annually throughout the United States and Europe.  Jon was a US representative at the ICPNA Guitar Festival in Lima, Peru. He served as a guest artist at the University of Wittenberg-Halle in Leipzig, Germany. Jon has taught workshops and masterclasses at Berklee College of Music, Bridgewater State College, Connecticut Guitar Society, Aguado Concert Series, Loudoun County Public Schools, Troy State University, Brigham Young University, University of Utah, and Utah Valley University.

From 2013 to 2017, Jon served as President of Utah Classical Guitar, which brings world-class classical guitar concerts, outreach, and music education to the Utah community.

Jon and his wife, dance artist Alexandra Bradshaw Yerby are duo ‘7&1,’ and create original work featuring contemporary dance with live guitar. 

Kathryn Lockwood, Viola
Yousif Sheronick, Percussion 

DuoJalal “are fearless seekers and synthesizers of disparate instruments and cultures” (Toronto Star). The married couple’s music presents an organic amalgam of cultural traditions and musical styles. Inspired by their namesake, the 13th-century poet Jalal a din Rumi, whose visions and words brought together people of different religions, cultures, and races, duoJalal invites all communities to a diverse, stimulating inter-cultural experience. They have performed throughout the United States, Australia, and Brazil for the past eleven years. The duo regularly presents world premieres of works composed or arranged for them by composers such as Philip Glass, Andrew Waggoner, Derek Bermel, Kenji Bunch, John Patitucci, Evan Ziporyn, and Giovanni Sollima. Their performance project “The Rumi Experience” blends poetry, multimedia, and music and premiered at the Williams Center in Easton, PA. DuoJalal’s first CD, “A Different World”  (Innova Recordings), was hailed as an “exhilarating sonic and somewhat mystical experience” (Jordon Times). Of their second CD, Shadow & Light” (Bridge Records), The Toronto Star exclaimed, “If this is what world music’s future holds, bring on the party.” In 2019, duoJalal became the ensemble in residence for the “Four Seasons@Sands Point” concert series in Long Island, NY. In addition to performing, the duo offers masterclasses and clinics for strings and world drumming to both children and adults. Recent masterclasses were at Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the Percussive Arts Society’s International Convention. 

Timothy Long is a pianist and conductor of Muscogee, Thlopthlocco, and Choctaw descent who is Music Director of Opera at the Eastman School of Music.

His early training as a pianist and violinist led to work with singers, and eventually to conducting engagements that have included companies such as Boston Lyric Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Colorado, Utah Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Pacific Opera Victoria, City Opera Vancouver, Shreveport Opera, Opera New England, The Juilliard School, Yale Opera, Stony Brook Opera, the Maryland Opera Studio, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra, the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, the Prague Summer Nights Festival Orchestra, and off-broadway with The New Group.

Tim has performed as a pianist and harpsichordist at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Center, National Sawdust, Jordan Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Herkules Hall in Munich, Dvořák Hall in Prague, La Halle aux Grains in Toulouse, the Mostly Modern Festival, the Moab Music Festival, the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Caramoor Festival, and the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, among many others.

Tim is the producer, writer, and host of a podcast discussing race and music, Unequal Temperament, produced by The Foundry Arts in New York City. He is on the Advisory Board of the American Indians Musicians’ Scholarship and is a current member of the National Congress of American Indians.

A soloist musician, composer and vibrant collaborator, Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) creates across multiple platforms, including recorded albums, live performances, and filmic and artistic soundtracks. She has collaborated with artists such as Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, Okkyung Lee, Martin Bisi, Jeffrey Gibson, Caroline Monnet, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Martha Colburn, and In Defense of Memory. An inquisitive and exquisite violinist, Ortman is versed in Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, and amplified violin, often sings through a megaphone, and is a producer of capacious field recordings. 

She has performed at The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Guggenheim, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Artists Space, The Stone residency, The New Museum, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, The Toronto Biennial, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, among countless established and DIY venues in the US, Canada, and Europe. In 2008 Ortman founded the Coast Orchestra, an all-Native American orchestral ensemble that performed a live soundtrack to Edward Curtis’s film In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), the first silent feature film to star an all-Native American cast. Ortman is the recipient of the 2022 Forge Project Fellowship, 2022 United States Artists Fellowship, 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists, 2020 Jerome@Camargo Residency in Cassis, France, 2017 Jerome Foundation Composer and Sound Artist Fellowship, 2016 Art Matters Grant, 2016 Native Arts and Culture Foundation Fellowship, 2015 IAIA’s Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Social Engagement Residency, 2014-15 Rauschenberg Residency, and 2010 Artist-in-Residence at Issue Project Room. She was also a participating artist in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Ortman lives in Brooklyn, New York.